Dinner Seats Bochur Up Front

By COLlive reporter

Among the people who were being photographed at a recent gala in the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt New York was Elchonon Reitzes, a 27 year-old Lubavitcher bochur.

It has been a tradition at the annual dinner of the Gift of Life organization to take a group photo of bone marrow donors and the recipients whose lives they saved.

Reitzes, 27, of Crown Heights, was a donor.

Back in 2002, as a bochur in Oholei Torah Zal, there was a drive for a little girl who needed a transplant. Reitzes went to get tested but it was not a match.

“Each donor gets a card and a number on it,” he told COLlive.com. “Then in 2007, when I thought they forgot or lost my file, I got a call that there was someone who was a match.”

That person, Reitzes found out in 2010, was David Klein, Chairman of the Board of the Jewish Community of Louisville, Kentucky.

They became friends and recently spent a day together in Israel, where each visited for a separate reason.

Some 600 people attended the Gift of Life dinner two weeks ago. Among them were Australia Shliach Rabbi Dovid Slavin, Crown Heights activist Eli Slavin and Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz of Machne Israel.

Charles R. Bronfman, former owner of The Seagram Company and the Montreal Expos, delivered a moving tribute to Gift of Life’s founders and recipients of this year’s Partners for Life Award, Jay, Jack and Arlene Feinberg.

Jay Feinberg, a 15 year transplant survivor himself, made an emotional appeal on behalf of the families of two families for whom Gift of Life is searching for matches.

Reitzes told COLlive.com he hopes others follow suit.

“It’s an incredible feeling that you can save a person’s life,” he said. “When you donate, you don’t really understand the magnitude of the donation. You are not only saving a person, you are saving a family.”

The Fineman family of Fair Lawn, New Jersey is hoping for a miracle match for their two-year old son, Ezra, whose rare immune deficiency could be cured by a bone marrow transplant, were told.

Likewise, the Poupko-Galena family of New York City is actively searching for a match for their daughter Ayelet; a one –year old with a bone marrow failure disorder.